Casa Buddenbrook

This guy crushes you with his genius work from his early twenties. My only obiection: too much Hegel, not enough Kierkegaard. I prefer individuality over tipology. I do not care for family drama, I want the passio of the I. In spite of this: majestic execution. It's the choral symphony of the 20th century: Richard Strauss meets Gustav Mahler. And If you have a philosophical background, this one is for you. Son of a merchant turned philosopher Schopenhauer, son of a priest turned Antichrist Nietzsche - they both worshipped music. In fact - or so they thought - the value of life would be greatly diminished in a world without music. The way Mann prefigures the nascent psychoanalysis is staggering. The knowledge of the soul of man makes you both powerful and anxious. Not unlike Kierkegaard, Thomas Mann discusses ambivalently the nature of ambivalence in a realm where logic bows to psychology. He also prefigures existential phenomenology with the description of the Das Man - conformism, deception and amnezia. Not unlike in Musil or Haneke, one distantly hears the Nazi Winds of Wotan.